Deep Midnight

She studied the mannequin again, forcing herself to think logically.



Yes, she could see why she’d had the momentary vision.



The lean features were similar to Steven’s. The eyes had been painted hazel; the hair was his color as well. The size was about right.



A surge of sorrow swept through her. A year wasn’t such a long time.



He had come suddenly into her life, and she had found herself suddenly responding. He had been charming, intelligent, impressive . .. noble.



He shouldn’t have been a cop, she thought. He had been too trusting. He had hated violence, but had come on the force in homicide?a man who had believed in rehabilitation, who was completely against the death penalty, and was determined that suspects must be taken alive.



Taking suspects alive had cost him his own life.



She had known what had happened when she heard the sirens in the night, when she looked out her door and saw the cop car, and the officer coming down her walk. She had known what he did; she shouldn’t have been shocked. That hadn’t stopped her from being horrified, devastated. She had gone through the stages of grief: denial, anger, pain. But she had remained sane.



She had come to the stage of acceptance. She hadn’t lost her reason or her mind in any way.



Maybe she had, she mocked herself, if she was seeing his face in the features of a store-window dummy.



Steven was gone. She still felt the sorrow, but she was living her life. He had died under cruel circumstances, and she would be a fool to forget that horrible things did happen.



A breeze whispered. Soft, cool, beautiful. She forced the past to the back of her mind. She loved Italy, adored Venice, and was not going to let the contessa ruin that simple fact.



She looked away and kept walking. She was not to blame in this. If it had all been a charade, it had been a deplorable one. Jared had no right to be so callous, and she had every right to be furious.



Beyond the Square, she came to streets filled with cafes and shops. Glancing through the window of a restaurant specializing in fish, she noted that many people had doffed their masks for the singular pleasure of eating. They all looked so... normal. A chubby little businessman had his cape thrown over his shoulder while his dottore mask lay on the chair by his side. A half moon mask and a large plumed hat lay on the table by the side of his companion, an equally chubby woman with a charming laugh that rang all the way to the streets. Americans, Jordan thought. Vacationers, like herself, loving this fantasy.



Looking into the restaurant had made her smile. Yet even as she watched, smiling back at the woman who had seen her, she felt an eerie feeling creep up her spine.



Stop! she commanded herself.



But the feeling persisted.



And it had nothing to do with memories of Steven. She had been smiling at a plump and friendly looking American woman when the strange sensation began a trek along her spine.



She felt again that she was being watched.



Whispers seemed to sweep by her, snatches spoken in the wind, there and then gone. Whispers, swift, staccato, like an evil, raspy breeze, just touching her ears, her nape. For a moment, the street seemed to go dark. Reflected in the glass of the restaurant window, darkness seemed to descend, like huge wings sweeping over the daylight.



The woman seated inside the restaurant was still laughing. The darkness disappeared as swiftly as if it had flown away on wings of light. And still ...



That feeling.



Something... someone. . . right beside her. A cold, fetid, whisper of menace ...



Jordan swung around, feeling as if bony fingers of sheer ice touched upon her shoulder.



Gino Meroni did not at all dislike his work.



Years ago, when he was a boy, his parents had immigrated to America. He went to high school in New York City, but had neither the money nor the inclination to go any further with his schooling. By the time he was eighteen, his mother and father were still producing more offspring, and so he found himself on his own, trying to make a go of it. He was expected to work, to help with the family, but he couldn’t stand the crying of babies, and his mother’s prayers and insistence on church every Sunday, or the sorrowful darkness in her eyes each time she warned him that he was running with the wrong crowd. He liked his friends.



They knew the cheapest bars. And where to get money when they were broke. They knew which subway routes were poorly policed. They were excellent at removing the burdens of purses, briefcases, and backpacks from those who were surely weary of carrying them. Once, when plying his trade along Fifth Avenue late at night, he made the mistake of mugging an undercover officer.



He did a stint in jail. He called home. His father refused to bail him out. He never went to prison; his attorney managed to plea bargain a sentence of time served and community service. Community service led him to work in Central Park, a fine place to master the art of surprise and attack.



One night, the thump on the head he gave to an old geezer who had picked up the wrong prostitute killed the man. He didn’t know it at first; he read about it in the paper the next morning. He wasn’t afraid of being caught; he had learned to wear gloves, to strike, and to run. He hadn’t been seen. The branch with which he had killed the fellow lay on the walk by him and bore no prints. The prostitute, who had lain screaming and begging for her life, hadn’t seen his face or heard him speak. She had run faster than Gino had after he attacked the old man.



His lack of fear at being caught was somewhat surprising to him. More so was his total lack of remorse.



The guy had been old. The whack on the head he had bestowed on him had merely put the geezer out of any future misery.



But that wasn’t it. Gino had liked the look of fear on the guy’s face. He had liked the feel of wielding the broken branch with so much power that it shuddered in his hands as it struck gray hair, flesh, and bone.



Robbing the unwary, however, wasn’t enough. He had to get work?a day job. The only work he could find where he wasn’t asked too many questions was nonunion, back-breaking labor at the docks. There, the bosses liked to use men who didn’t have references. They didn’t believe in bonuses. Overtime was overlooked. He had a strong, burly build. When he worked, he worked hard. His English was perfect, unaccented, though he could slip into the role of a struggling new immigrant when he found it necessary or convenient.



In a bar one night, he met a stranger who gave him some veiled hints on how to improve his income.



He agreed to meet the stranger again.



The man opened up a new world to him.



First, there were the drugs. What a difference they made after a long day of hard labor. Gino was a good-looking man. The stranger provided not just drugs, but women as well. They liked him. They liked the accent he could affect at will. Every night, when he chose, there was something. Some sweet reward.



He knew, of course, that nothing in life was free. He expected to be asked favors in return. They were usually easy. Because of his work habits by day, he was trusted. His powerful friends asked only that certain shipments at certain times go by without inspection, that certain crates be guarded and never opened. He was more than happy to oblige. He had a new car, a decent apartment. There were days when he stayed in some of the finest hotels despite his own pleasant lodgings. So little to pay, so much to be gained.



Then, late one summer afternoon, when he was about to call it quits for the day, two inspectors arrived at the docks. The Star of Sheba, registered to a Middle Eastern country, was about to leave port. There were a number of crates aboard that had been slipped onto the ship illegally. They were important; that had been emphasized to Gino. Crewmen, suspecting something was up, mysteriously disappeared. Gino found himself alone with the two men from the government.



One of them had put down a crowbar. Gino decided to use it. He stowed the two dead men behind the crates. The Star of Sheba sailed as planned. But the bodies were found, and this time, he had forgotten to get rid of the crowbar, and there were those who had seen him with the government men. The good thing was that the crates reached their destination undisturbed. The bad was that Gino was arrested and charged with murder.



His friends, naturally, provided him with an attorney, an extremely attractive woman. When he tried to flirt with her and make light of his situation, he found out that she was very intelligent. Sharp as a tack, hard as a nail. He was immediately put in his place as she explained the gravity of the situation.



Jail was bad, his attorney told him. Prison was much worse. There were lots of guys in there much bigger than he was. All those things he had done to others could be done to him. And looking over the physical evidence... well, she could plea bargain, but he might find himself being a pincushion and more for men who were truly the dregs of society. As they talked, he came to realize that the best thing to do was what she suggested: escape and leave the country. She had a place in Italy; he could go back to his real home. He had come from Bari; her home was in Venice. No matter. There was plenty he could do for her. False papers could be arranged, and the actual escape seemed of little difficulty for his powerful friends. The idea appealed to him far more than being buggered by a bunch of apes. Filthy, toothless, animals, hardly human.



They arranged the escape for a day he was scheduled to be transferred to another facility. The driver of his car was apparently with his friends; the police escort was stopped by another police car. His escort simply disappeared; he never asked how.



At a hotel outside the airport he was given new clothing and a passport with a new identity. He reached Venice via Paris. At first, he had little to do; very little to do. He was warned that he must lie low, that he needn’t seek income in any other way than his work for his friends. For a few years, he wasn’t sure what his real worth was?he worked for an important woman, but he was a delivery man, a courier, and captain of the launch. His employer had been away for many years; she was just now reestablishing herself in her family home, yet she was very often gone: a woman of her stature and means had many social obligations in other countries.



Nor were women such as she bound by the rules of others.



In time, he discovered what his true talents were to be for his employer.



He didn’t mind.



He didn’t dislike his work. He didn’t mind the cold, the sharp breeze that blew around him, nor the rocking of the boat in winter. The ... messiness of his work didn’t bother him, either. Thinking in American terms, his was a job right up his own alley.